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"Oh, Anita, you're so beautiful and sexy, you know that?" was the nicest terrible thing a random Twitter user said to Anita Sarkeesian, creator of the Tropes vs.Women in Video Games series, as he peppered her with threats of rape, death, and the address of her home and that of her parents following the posting of her latest video on Monday. The video, which would be right at home on PBS in tone if not content, suggested that many mainstream games represent women as accessories and shorthand rather than as humans, a viewpoint that generated swift and unrelenting rage.

The attack on Sarkeesian was among a number of incidents in the last few weeks that exposed some of the ugly (yet familiar) attitudes and prejudices that remain deeply ingrained in the gaming culture. This time, those sentiments have gotten tied up in ethical arguments in an attempt to highlight the toxic behavior.

A lie gets halfway around the world

The tide of abuse first surged over Zoe Quinn, creator of the game Depression Quest, who got a deluge of negative attention, abuse, threats, and harassment over a blog post written about her by an ex-boyfriend that was published August 16. The post, composed of narcissistic analysis mixed in with screenshots of several online conversations, exposed many personal details about Quinn irrelevant to her profession or professional conduct.

Details from the post were quickly spun into a conspiracy. Based on the lone fact of Quinn's relationship with one Kotaku writer, Nathan Grayson, who quoted her once in an article and never covered or reviewed her game, rumors circulated that Quinn had "alleged affairs with video game journalists" which influenced coverage of her game. There is no evidence to support this assertion, and the only fact that it's based on—that Quinn began a relationship with Grayson some time after he quoted her in an article and never published anything about her again—disproves it. The other two people named in the post are a sound designer and Quinn's boss, who do not work in gaming journalism.

Yet the accusations went on, along with doxxing and hacking of Quinn's information and accounts. The onslaught continued with assertions that Quinn made up the harassment, that she used devious womanly wiles to get her (free) game some coverage, and that she portrayed herself as a victim to receive donations. Around August 17, Phil Fish, the creator of Fez, tried to step in and defend Quinn. After he received pushback, Fish threatened to cancel unnamed projects.

Fish then said he had his Twitter and Dropbox accounts hacked and e-mail accounts, passwords, and banking information published in response to his defense. Fish shamed those who were attacking Quinn on his Twitter account: "All you people attacking Zoe are cowards. Attacking a woman the easiest way you can. Despicable cowards, all of you." Fish followed by announcing his Fez IP was for sale because he "want[ed] out" of the gaming industry.

Women as background decoration

Then came the vicious attacks on Sarkeesian and her video series, which looks at how women are portrayed and used in everything from AAA titles to indies. Sarkeesian published an installment Monday that was the second of two parts studying "women as background decoration" in games. The video includes examples from games like Watch Dogs, where the main character watches multiple instances of violent domestic abuse and, rather than take even a second look at the woman who suffers it, is required to amble off and track down the man who did it.

Sarkeesian's videos, which are extremely well-researched and insightful, always draw a measure of harassment and abuse from the stereotypical gamers, who are typically vitriolic toward issues of diversity. This time, the video reached all the way to the likes of Joss Whedon and Tim Schafer. The amplified message earned Sarkeesian an avalanche of threats, including rape, death, and harm to her family. Sarkeesian ultimately left her home and reported the threats to the police. "I’m safe. Authorities have been notified. Staying with friends tonight," she wrote on Twitter early Wednesday.

Enough outlets have, by now, highlighted the profound irony that one woman who dared point out some of the misogyny in video games was so deluged by misogynistic threats over how there is no misogyny in video games that she was driven into hiding. Quinn's story lacked entirely in irony; instead it was just a good old-fashioned example of a woman's personal life used to inflict professional damage, despite the fact that those two things are not related at all.

Many of the people slagging off Sarkeesian and Quinn bind their arguments up in bigger issues, saying that Quinn's situation shines light on ethical quandaries in games and gaming journalism, and Sarkeesian's illuminates crowd-funded "scams" where "social justice warriors" "cherry-pick" evidence to undermine the massive business and culture of video games, rightfully owned by a particular kind of white man.

All of the tertiary accusations against Quinn (that she invented attacks or abuse) are aimed to discredit her. The same goes for Sarkeesian: the structure and content of her videos are extremely common to critical analysis, as the New Statesmanpoints out. But when that style of criticism gets applied to video games, it feels like a threat to a certain insular, and extremely vocal, community for whom, as Leigh Alexander writes for Gamasutra, their "identity depends on the aging cultural signposts of a rapidly-evolving, increasingly broad and complex medium."

For gaming to be taken seriously as an art form, it needs to be able to stand up to cultural critiques, and gamers need to be able to separate a developer's personal life from her work. But it especially holds the medium back when these situations not only fail to play out in a civilized way, but become opportunistic embroiling of women in the "problems" of gaming culture, creation, and coverage.

It is, on a sad meta level, a real-life version of what Sarkeesian discusses in "Women As Background Decoration Part 2": women being treated as less-than, harassed and harangued out of the conversation, in service to a different, "bigger" problem. And every time it happens, it advances the goals of the most poisonous "gamers," while regressing everything else.

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Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

1828 Reader Comments

No, I don't see what Sarkeesian is attempting, which is basically a feminist study of video games, as analogous to journalism, which implies reporting of news. A journalist would report on a feminist study, not perform one.

If I have fundamentally misunderstood the position, the "adult" thing to do would be to explain it calmly, rationally, and without hurling one line insults at me twice. So explain to me how Sarkeesian is a corrupt journalist that's part of an organized progressive social agenda conspiracy (with evidence that she is both corrupt and said conspiracy actually exists) and we'll go from there.

How do you even start to defend that when Sarkeesian isn't a journalist?

If it's all about journalists she would not be attacked on Twitter and the subject of YouTube videos.

You keep doing this. #gamergate is about truth; gamers often see some of the critiques she makes based on false or distorted information. There are feminists who use #gamergate, and not to attack people.

Disagreement and critique of her critique is not being attacked.

It's not Sarkeesian that's getting criticized, it's her work. You need to live with separating the two, or else she can't be a critic. And just because she puts her videos up on youtube doesn't mean she's not a critic. TotalBisquit is a critic, and I'm sure if he weren't upfront with his paid advertising people would be more critical of him (yes, I'm aware of the spat of youtube critics who were making paid advertising without disclosing it; unlike the current bout they were open to discussion and change)

If Adam Sessler wants to disclose his personal friendship with Ms. Quinn before using her as a source in an article, that's acceptable. I'm going to color the article as tainted with bias, because it is, but at least I'll know about that beforehand, and if I feel Mr. Sessler has too many such personal relationships with the subjects of his articles, I'll stop reading his work all together.

But the hiding and pretending to be neutral, and pushing a message despite the truth? That's got to stop. And if they can't, they've got to resign and find something else to do. PR rep or whatever.

Please, STOP pretending this is about hating women. It really NEVER was for most people.

Please, STOP pretending this is about hating women. It really NEVER was for most people.

You know, taken together, this is kind of a breathtaking amount of echo-chamber-itis. I am NOT trying to insult you, merely pointing out that I think you're missing a good chunk of what's going on.

Sarkeesian's work is academic. She ISN'T a games journalist. You can say it's false all you want (I myself disagree with some of the work as well), but you can't pretend that attacking her work is an exercise is trying to show that there's bias in the gaming press. You can say that the reporters reporting on her work don't listen to the other side, you can criticize all you want the way the media handles it. But that's not what DID happen, and that's not what IS happening.

What DID happen, and what IS happening is that people are attacking her work AND her on a personal level as part of a conversation they claim is about journalism. Wait, what? That's like a sociologist doing a study on racism in America, it getting published in a bunch of newspapers and a group of people who claim to be interested in journalism in America obsessing about the sociologist and his work, and threatening to rape and kill the journalist, and then someone claiming that the real target of this is the newspapers.

And, I'm going to paraphrase your first comment.

GamerGaters aren't being criticized, it's their behavior. You can claim (as you have done) that "most" people really only care about the journalistic ethics thing. Then why the massive amount of toxic material from the gamergaters? Why the No True Scotsman fallacy of trying only to ascribe the messages you like to the movement? Hell, why obsess over Sarkeesian? She is, at best, the author of an opinion piece. Her being involved, personally, whether you attack her personally OR you attack her work, is a sign that there's more to it than that. You don't just get to ignore the other messages coming from the people supporting GamerGate because it doesn't support your personal point of view.

If you, personally, are focusing only on journalistic ethics, then you should DISTANCE yourself from a movement like GamerGate. You want people's work to be judged, not them personally? As a group, the GamerGater's "work" has a high degree of toxicity, insularity, and misogyny in it. You want not to get associated with that? STOP SUPPORTING THEM. Make a different group. A group with a set of stated ideals that has nothing to do with women, and goes after the most rampant forms of corruption in games journalism. Of course, that means ignoring a lot of the examples that GamerGate has been obsessing over. A good idea would be to ensure that a woman publishing her (admittedly opinionated-to-the-point-of-biased) research on YouTube isn't confused with a journalist.

Please, STOP pretending this is about hating women. It really NEVER was for most people.

You know, taken together, this is kind of a breathtaking amount of echo-chamber-itis. I am NOT trying to insult you, merely pointing out that I think you're missing a good chunk of what's going on.

Sarkeesian's work is academic. She ISN'T a games journalist. You can say it's false all you want (I myself disagree with some of the work as well), but you can't pretend that attacking her work is an exercise is trying to show that there's bias in the gaming press. You can say that the reporters reporting on her work don't listen to the other side, you can criticize all you want the way the media handles it. But that's not what DID happen, and that's not what IS happening.

What DID happen, and what IS happening is that people are attacking her work AND her on a personal level as part of a conversation they claim is about journalism. Wait, what? That's like a sociologist doing a study on racism in America, it getting published in a bunch of newspapers and a group of people who claim to be interested in journalism in America obsessing about the sociologist and his work, and threatening to rape and kill the journalist, and then someone claiming that the real target of this is the newspapers.

And, I'm going to paraphrase your first comment.

GamerGaters aren't being criticized, it's their behavior. You can claim (as you have done) that "most" people really only care about the journalistic ethics thing. Then why the massive amount of toxic material from the gamergaters? Why the No True Scotsman fallacy of trying only to ascribe the messages you like to the movement? Hell, why obsess over Sarkeesian? She is, at best, the author of an opinion piece. Her being involved, personally, whether you attack her personally OR you attack her work, is a sign that there's more to it than that. You don't just get to ignore the other messages coming from the people supporting GamerGate because it doesn't support your personal point of view.

If you, personally, are focusing only on journalistic ethics, then you should DISTANCE yourself from a movement like GamerGate. You want people's work to be judged, not them personally? As a group, the GamerGater's "work" has a high degree of toxicity, insularity, and misogyny in it. You want not to get associated with that? STOP SUPPORTING THEM. Make a different group. A group with a set of stated ideals that has nothing to do with women, and goes after the most rampant forms of corruption in games journalism. Of course, that means ignoring a lot of the examples that GamerGate has been obsessing over. A good idea would be to ensure that a woman publishing her (admittedly opinionated-to-the-point-of-biased) research on YouTube isn't confused with a journalist.

You want people's work to be judged, not them personally? As a group, the GamerGater's "work" has a high degree of toxicity, insularity, and misogyny in it. You want not to get associated with that? STOP SUPPORTING THEM. Make a different group.

That cuts both ways. I.e. modern feminism with its "kill all men" and its cups with "male tears" printed on.

Gamergate is a fucktarded /v/ thing, and that should tell you all you need to know about it.

However - that does not address the fact that certain high profile feminists, Sarkeesian/Quinn and their ilk, are quick to spin any comments that they have engaged in some kind of wrongdoing as based in sexism, which in most cases couldn't be further from the truth.

Why are we still talking about a handful of trolls again? The bigger issue is and always has been the journalism angle. Trolls gonna troll.

Please, STOP pretending this is about hating women. It really NEVER was for most people.

You know, taken together, this is kind of a breathtaking amount of echo-chamber-itis. I am NOT trying to insult you, merely pointing out that I think you're missing a good chunk of what's going on.

Sarkeesian's work is academic. She ISN'T a games journalist. You can say it's false all you want (I myself disagree with some of the work as well), but you can't pretend that attacking her work is an exercise is trying to show that there's bias in the gaming press. You can say that the reporters reporting on her work don't listen to the other side, you can criticize all you want the way the media handles it. But that's not what DID happen, and that's not what IS happening.

What DID happen, and what IS happening is that people are attacking her work AND her on a personal level as part of a conversation they claim is about journalism. Wait, what? That's like a sociologist doing a study on racism in America, it getting published in a bunch of newspapers and a group of people who claim to be interested in journalism in America obsessing about the sociologist and his work, and threatening to rape and kill the journalist, and then someone claiming that the real target of this is the newspapers.

And, I'm going to paraphrase your first comment.

GamerGaters aren't being criticized, it's their behavior. You can claim (as you have done) that "most" people really only care about the journalistic ethics thing. Then why the massive amount of toxic material from the gamergaters? Why the No True Scotsman fallacy of trying only to ascribe the messages you like to the movement? Hell, why obsess over Sarkeesian? She is, at best, the author of an opinion piece. Her being involved, personally, whether you attack her personally OR you attack her work, is a sign that there's more to it than that. You don't just get to ignore the other messages coming from the people supporting GamerGate because it doesn't support your personal point of view.

If you, personally, are focusing only on journalistic ethics, then you should DISTANCE yourself from a movement like GamerGate. You want people's work to be judged, not them personally? As a group, the GamerGater's "work" has a high degree of toxicity, insularity, and misogyny in it. You want not to get associated with that? STOP SUPPORTING THEM. Make a different group. A group with a set of stated ideals that has nothing to do with women, and goes after the most rampant forms of corruption in games journalism. Of course, that means ignoring a lot of the examples that GamerGate has been obsessing over. A good idea would be to ensure that a woman publishing her (admittedly opinionated-to-the-point-of-biased) research on YouTube isn't confused with a journalist.

This whole narrative you have about Gamergate being about toxicity is part of the problem; it's without merit. You lump every internet troll in as if that's what #gamergate is about. You drag Ms. Quinn into it and say that's what Gamergate is about. You drag Ms. Sarkeesian in and say that's what it's about.

But these are all issues manufactured by you, to deflect criticism of journalism. The only criticism I've seen of Sarkeesian has to do with her blocking criticism of her own work by, for example, saying criticism is harassment. Which is apparently something you accept as truth.

But I'm done arguing with you. You haven't argued in good faith the entire time, in any time I've ever argued with you. We'll have to agree to disagree. If you don't like that, I don't care. I'm not engaging with someone who continues to create strawmen, utilize ad hominem, and wants to continue to not look at the facts. Support your friends if you like. Don't talk to me anymore.

You want people's work to be judged, not them personally? As a group, the GamerGater's "work" has a high degree of toxicity, insularity, and misogyny in it. You want not to get associated with that? STOP SUPPORTING THEM. Make a different group.

That cuts both ways. I.e. modern straw-feminism with its "kill all men" and its cups with "male tears" printed on.

The point once again being that "Gamergate" is a movement without a distinct head. For all the people claiming it's about journalistic ethics, there's the side that is fueled by the insane tea-party-esque "gamer in name only" misogynists. Once again, since at least one person can't get it through their skull, THAT DOESN'T IMPLICATE EVERYONE. Not everyone who supports gamergate is like that. No doubt in my mind. Here's the thing though-- those people that ARE still supporting gamergate are doing something that I feel is wrong-- they're trying to pretend like those people aren't really what gamergate is about, and instead to continue onward with gamergate. This is wrong for two reasons:

First, because nobody "owns" GamerGate. It is an internet movement shielded by anonymity and polluted by trolls. Any attempt to say "they're not the real GamerGaters" is, as I pointed out earlier, nothing but a No True Scotsman fallacy. The trolls, the misogynists, those truly interested in ethics-- they all have equal claim to the name. You can't simply chop off the part of the movement you don't like and go, "hey guys, stop worrying about those death threats, and talk about the things we care about instead.

Second, because the "journalistic ethics" thing is simply much less important than the "collectively horrible portrayals and treatment of women thing". Gaming is fundamentally about entertainment. It's a form of entertainment I enjoy, but it's not anything wildly important. This whole situation is like there being a debate about which was more important-- a bunch of racist nonsense in movies, and people sending death threats to black people who point it out, or the ethics of the authors who write for celebrity magazines. The two just aren't comparable. One issue, the treatment of women, is important not only to gaming as a hobby, but also to, you know...the treatment of 51% of the people on the planet. The other issue is about how the people who write about video games, who have taken free copies of games and trips to events for YEARS, suddenly need to adhere to the same standards as war reporters?

Again, the issue of journalistic ethics has merit. Just not in the face of a much more important issue. Again, the reason you're only really hearing one side of this is that the other side is a pretty terrible message. I will be MORE than happy to support improvements to journalistic ethics...just as soon as the bigger issue, the horrible treatment of women, is acknowledged to be the larger, more important goal. Gamergate is inherently tied up with the misogynists. You can't separate the two because nobody owns the movement.

Those of you whose goal is improving journalistic ethics have a point. The problem is, the "movement" keeps targeting women because there is no cohesive movement. You want to stop getting lumped in with the misogynists? STOP BEING A PART OF THE SAME GROUP.

Please, STOP pretending this is about hating women. It really NEVER was for most people.

You know, taken together, this is kind of a breathtaking amount of echo-chamber-itis. I am NOT trying to insult you, merely pointing out that I think you're missing a good chunk of what's going on.

Sarkeesian's work is academic. She ISN'T a games journalist. You can say it's false all you want (I myself disagree with some of the work as well), but you can't pretend that attacking her work is an exercise is trying to show that there's bias in the gaming press. You can say that the reporters reporting on her work don't listen to the other side, you can criticize all you want the way the media handles it. But that's not what DID happen, and that's not what IS happening.

What DID happen, and what IS happening is that people are attacking her work AND her on a personal level as part of a conversation they claim is about journalism. Wait, what? That's like a sociologist doing a study on racism in America, it getting published in a bunch of newspapers and a group of people who claim to be interested in journalism in America obsessing about the sociologist and his work, and threatening to rape and kill the journalist, and then someone claiming that the real target of this is the newspapers.

And, I'm going to paraphrase your first comment.

GamerGaters aren't being criticized, it's their behavior. You can claim (as you have done) that "most" people really only care about the journalistic ethics thing. Then why the massive amount of toxic material from the gamergaters? Why the No True Scotsman fallacy of trying only to ascribe the messages you like to the movement? Hell, why obsess over Sarkeesian? She is, at best, the author of an opinion piece. Her being involved, personally, whether you attack her personally OR you attack her work, is a sign that there's more to it than that. You don't just get to ignore the other messages coming from the people supporting GamerGate because it doesn't support your personal point of view.

If you, personally, are focusing only on journalistic ethics, then you should DISTANCE yourself from a movement like GamerGate. You want people's work to be judged, not them personally? As a group, the GamerGater's "work" has a high degree of toxicity, insularity, and misogyny in it. You want not to get associated with that? STOP SUPPORTING THEM. Make a different group. A group with a set of stated ideals that has nothing to do with women, and goes after the most rampant forms of corruption in games journalism. Of course, that means ignoring a lot of the examples that GamerGate has been obsessing over. A good idea would be to ensure that a woman publishing her (admittedly opinionated-to-the-point-of-biased) research on YouTube isn't confused with a journalist.

Exactly this.

Actually everything is wrong with that.

Sarkessian wasn't a part of the gaming journalism issue. She was only associated with the entire thing through the SilverString media PR outlet and her friendship with Zoe Quinn. Sarkeesian interjected herself into the whole thing by trying to support Quinn by making parallels between their two situations. She has become a lightening rod on the issue and has helped muddle the waters along with media associates.

You are right though, Sarkeesian isn't a journalist although she is labeled as a researcher. However, unlike real researchers, criticism of her work is dismissed or labeled as misogyny right off the bat. And it's funny that you bring up the No True Scotsman fallacy as it applies to many supporters of her "opinion" (your words not mine) or work. Her body of work has been consistently debunked yet many still hold her as a beacon of truth, quoting her work as fact. That's a dangerous precedent and many aren't happy. Many who are not associated with Gamer Gate but are often labeled as being one and the same.

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Those of you whose goal is improving journalistic ethics have a point. The problem is, the "movement" keeps targeting women because there is no cohesive movement. You want to stop getting lumped in with the misogynists? STOP BEING A PART OF THE SAME GROUP.

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As a group, the GamerGater's "work" has a high degree of toxicity, insularity, and misogyny in it. You want not to get associated with that? STOP SUPPORTING THEM. Make a different group. A group with a set of stated ideals that has nothing to do with women, and goes after the most rampant forms of corruption in games journalism.

Remember the #GameEthics hastag? Yeah, neither do most people as it was a short lived attempt to rebrand into something more focused on the situation. Unfortunately, the same people screaming misogyny were quick to call it the same thing. The hastag died out and everyone then stayed with GamerGate. It was a losing proposition any way you look at it. Those opposing the questioning of the status quo were going to be called misogynists either way even when there was no basis for it.

Right now, criticism of women will always be labeled as misogyny. As time goes on, it will be seen in the same light as "crying wolf" which is going to have a real detrimental effect on those that are experiencing real sexism and misogyny. The misuse and overuse of that word alone is so bad and out of context that it's shameful.

Based on your post, I'm very much uncertain as to whether or not you actually understand what the no true Scotsman fallacy actually is. Given that whether or not her body of work has been "debunked" (and you get a big eyeroll for that as well) has precisely nothing to do with that, and yet you appear to conflate the two.

Once again, standing back and going "well, if you think about it, this whole thing really is the fault of these women", blaming them for the abuse they got, implying that women can't handle criticism without crying "misogyny" (which is ironic because by painting them all with that brush, you ARE being misogynistic), all while also saying that the movement doesn't have massive sexist overtones is ... well, it doesn't help your point.

The REASON Sarkeesian said they were similar is that they were both receiving threats (which, of course, sort of defeats the "she wasn't involved until she involved herself" mantra, by the way). Those threats were sexually charged and directed at them largely because of their gender.

As to the "GameEthics" tag, can't say I saw any real push for that. But if your argument is "we didn't get as much attention when we weren't a part of the group that includes the crazies espousing misogyny, so we went back and joined them"... it's not exactly a great argument.

Based on your post, I'm very much uncertain as to whether or not you actually understand what the no true Scotsman fallacy actually is. Given that whether or not her body of work has been "debunked" (and you get a big eyeroll for that as well) has precisely nothing to do with that, and yet you appear to conflate the two.

Actually, I'm quite familiar with the logical fallacies. So when I associate it with "her followers" in my original post, I'm surprised when you attempt to specify Miss Sarkeesian. Eyeroll all you want, but her thesis has been hammered. But then her body of work selectively becomes research, opinion, or fact depending on the argument.

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Once again, standing back and going "well, if you think about it, this whole thing really is the fault of these women", blaming them for the abuse they got, implying that women can't handle criticism without crying "misogyny" (which is ironic because by painting them all with that brush, you ARE being misogynistic), all while also saying that the movement doesn't have massive sexist overtones is ... well, it doesn't help your point.

Umm, that's not what's being said here at all but thanks for trying to change it. Harassment is going to happen to anybody when they become the spokeperson for a controversial topic. ANYBODY regardless of gender or orientation. That's not victim blaming, that's fact and a large number of critics from a diverse collection of hobbies and subjects who have been on the receiving end are a testament to that fact. Sarkeesian who was caught in her own video tape saying she wasn't a fan of video games or even played them made her look like an outsider which compounded a problem. Had a male done the same he too would have received harassment as well much like Jack Thompson did.

Oh I'm not saying they can't handle the criticism. Most definitely they can and they have banked on it. In Sarkeesian's case, that has made up a large part of her narrative and keynote talks. Oh wait, claiming that a female is using controversy is sexist.... except it isn't but that's a great way to appeal to emotion.

In Quinns case, we have two confirmed examples of her crying oppression and misogyny when trying to promote a game after they failed to get traction the first time. For an indie dev with some mediocre games, it's a wonder why she's a keynote speaker for Siegecon, picked for a major sponsor Game Jam (which she torpedoed for everyone), and is held as a top tier indie dev.

Again with the misogyny. That word. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

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As to the "GameEthics" tag, can't say I saw any real push for that. But if your argument is "we didn't get as much attention when we weren't a part of the group that includes the crazies espousing misogyny, so we went back and joined them"... it's not exactly a great argument.

It's not a great argument because that wasn't the argument being made. Maybe you should re-read it. It didn't catch on because the same people screaming misogyny were quick to label the other hashtag as a sock puppets and misogynist under a new title. But then much of the content still involved Zoe Quinn who had a direct link to much of the corruption. And her supporters were the ones doing the most yelling.

Actually, I'm quite familiar with the logical fallacies. So when I associate it with "her followers" in my original post, I'm surprised when you attempt to specify Miss Sarkeesian. Eyeroll all you want, but her thesis has been hammered. But then her body of work selectively becomes research, opinion, or fact depending on the argument.

Again, you're still missing the "true Scotsman" part.

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Umm, that's not what's being said here at all but thanks for trying to change it. Harassment is going to happen to anybody when they become the spokeperson for a controversial topic. ANYBODY regardless of gender or orientation.

If you believe that-- if you honestly, really believe that regardless of orientation, people are treated the same, then that is even worse. Seriously, Zoe Quinn-- a non-journalist, is threatened with rape. Tell me, if there is equal treatment, and the movement is really about journalistic ethics, why didn't the man she cheated on her boyfriend with, who is the ONLY one in her story who has any responsibility to have journalistic ethics, receive equal treatment.

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That's not victim blaming, that's fact

The two are not mutually exclusive.

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and a large number of critics from a diverse collection of hobbies and subjects who have been on the receiving end are a testament to that fact.

"Other people have had the same thing happen to them" isn't evidence that it isn't victim blaming here. For a person who claims to understand logical fallacies, you make a stunning number of them in each and every argument you make.

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Sarkeesian who was caught in her own video tape saying she wasn't a fan of video games or even played...

Which has zero relevance as to her being able to identify sexism in video games. Do you need to enjoy silent movies to be identify racism in them?

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them made her look like an outsider which compounded a problem. Had a male done the same he too would have received harassment as well much like Jack Thompson did.

Men HAVE said and done the same without having their home address published and being threatened with rape.

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Oh I'm not saying they can't handle the criticism. Most definitely they can and they have banked on it. In Sarkeesian's case, that has made up a large part of her narrative and keynote talks. Oh wait, claiming that a female is using controversy is sexist.... except it isn't but that's a great way to appeal to emotion.

It also has the benefit of being fucking true. She literally was threatened with death because she criticized sexism in video games. If you gave talks on the treatment of women in popular culture....wouldn't you talk about the fact that someone threatened to kill you for speaking your mind on sexism?

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In Quinns case, we have two confirmed examples of her crying oppression and misogyny when trying to promote a game after they failed to get traction the first time.

And examples of misogyny to accompany them. Amazingly, the thing she said existed, existed. Shocker, I know.

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For an indie dev with some mediocre games, it's a wonder why she's a keynote speaker for Siegecon, picked for a major sponsor Game Jam (which she torpedoed for everyone), and is held as a top tier indie dev.

Probably because for some reason, game developers want to support one of their own who has been threatened with rape and murder for merely making a game. Also, more strategically-- because she's a lightning rod, and likely to increase the press around the event. Her being mentioned will make the Game Jam more money.

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Again with the misogyny. That word. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Turns out, it does.

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It's not a great argument because that wasn't the argument being made. Maybe you should re-read it. It didn't catch on because the same people screaming misogyny were quick to label the other hashtag as a sock puppets and misogynist under a new title. But then much of the content still involved Zoe Quinn who had a direct link to much of the corruption. And her supporters were the ones doing the most yelling.

That's your ACCUSATION (unsubstantiated as it is possible to be) about the reason for the tag fading out. However, once again, the result is the net result is that the people, claiming to act in good faith, returned to the MORE TOXIC movement because they didn't gain traction with the new one. You're saying "we were mistreated, and misrepresented, so we went back to GamerGate. The problem is, that you're also saying that GamerGaters are being mistreated and misrepresented by being lumped in with the misogynists. So in order to escape the accusations of misogyny, you left the new movement to rejoin the one that was MORE likely to be accused of being aligned with misogynists?

No, I don't see what Sarkeesian is attempting, which is basically a feminist study of video games, as analogous to journalism, which implies reporting of news. A journalist would report on a feminist study, not perform one.

If I have fundamentally misunderstood the position, the "adult" thing to do would be to explain it calmly, rationally, and without hurling one line insults at me twice. So explain to me how Sarkeesian is a corrupt journalist that's part of an organized progressive social agenda conspiracy (with evidence that she is both corrupt and said conspiracy actually exists) and we'll go from there.

No one said she was a journalist. She's only notable in this controversy because of the way corrupt "journalists" and media have chosen to protect her and create a wall of silence about the incredibly shoddy quality her work to perpetuate a narrative about gamers which is just false.

She's as much of a "journalist" as Jack Thompson was, and about as much as a critic is he was as well. Its just the treatment which differs, if the gaming press had circled their wagons around jack, you'd see the same reaction from us as you do now. Its simply unjustifiable and points to something deeply wrong in the gaming press.

You clearly haven't looked into the background of this issue if the post that "sums up" your views says things like " From where I stand the "GG-side" does not, never has had, and never will have credibility. It did not arise as an ethical critique of journalism, but as a backlash to a feminist critique of a part of gaming culture (I'm simplifying things, but I think its needed at this juncture). To characterize the "GG-side" as for journalistic ethics seems naive and misinformed at best, and the all-over nature of the OP reinforces this."Doesn't have credibility because he says so? I'm sorry but he's working against a mountain of evidence to try to claim that both sides are wrong to draw a false equivalence so he can sleep happy not having to reconsider his preexisting opinions.

The behavior of the press and the infestation of feminist ideology into gaming is being documented, where as the counter doesn't exist, all they have is the claim that critics are anti feminist, so what? That in itself is not an argument. People have looked into academic organizations on gaming which have been slowly taken over by feminists which has led to the last few years where the atmosphere has become ever more toxic as more and more articles have been run by these people who also collude on a secret mailing list to attack gamers and push a certain agenda.

I'm sorry but whats out there has to be looked at before you come to an opinion, and its pretty clear many anti gamergate people choose to turn a blind eye to anything which doesn't come from the gaming press which basically makes their opinions fruits from a poisoned tree.

We've seen people dig into these peoples social media, you see the leigh alexanders of the world, a woman who gets published in many mainstream publications like time magazine even thanks to her ability to generate "credibility" points by being gamasutras editor in chief. What you see consistently from these people is not only a lack of professionalism when they don't think people are looking, but a total lack of maturity.

The arrogance, the eagerness to "destroy" people just reeks of the kind of toxic queen bee clique type bullying behavior you'd expect from someone in grade school. Some of these people are just high school bullies with pay checks, yet they point their fingers at gamers and claim we're the bad people? That's the problem, and its why anyone trying to draw false equivalence between games and these "professionals" is really going down the wrong path. These people should be expected to live up to higher standards than the worst gamer troll, I don't know how standards have become that low.

If you, personally, are focusing only on journalistic ethics, then you should DISTANCE yourself from a movement like GamerGate.

Yea your side has tried this before to discredit the people who are bringing forth inconvenient revelations, it was the "gamer is dead" campaign.... its a tactic which doesn't address the actual substance of what's being said and is just an attempt to derail a movement which these people fear. The scale of the attacks against the critics of the gaming press has been massive, the bullying tactics and just dirty dealings has been documented, even going as far as to mailing needles to brietbarts milo, never mind thunderf00ts twitter account. So I guess you should be asking the "gaming press" to distance themselves from any labels they have too right?

Also, it's obvious that guy has no idea how academic papers work. Some of the criticisms include the fact that it focused on one particular artistic medium (television) and referenced existing research on the subject. Seriously. The ignorance is mind-boggling.

I stopped watching after the first video. If that was an indication of what was to follow, I'm not missing anything.

Umm, that's not what's being said here at all but thanks for trying to change it. Harassment is going to happen to anybody when they become the spokeperson for a controversial topic. ANYBODY regardless of gender or orientation.

If you believe that-- if you honestly, really believe that regardless of orientation, people are treated the same, then that is even worse. Seriously, Zoe Quinn-- a non-journalist, is threatened with rape. Tell me, if there is equal treatment, and the movement is really about journalistic ethics, why didn't the man she cheated on her boyfriend with, who is the ONLY one in her story who has any responsibility to have journalistic ethics, receive equal treatment.

This is absurd, there's plenty of stuff how rape and abuse has been thrown around from both sides. Why is it that only gamergate gets labelled with misogyny? Why isn't anyone criticising Phil Fish for abusing someone who claimed that they were sexually assaulted by ZQ? There's a myriad of examples that can be flung around. Why should this problem be exclusively attributed to people identifying with gamergate when there's so much evidence to show that the white knights are far bigger misogynists, misandrists, just bigger haters?

Sarkeesian who was caught in her own video tape saying she wasn't a fan of video games or even played...

Which has zero relevance as to her being able to identify sexism in video games. Do you need to enjoy silent movies to be identify racism in them?

You'd kind of expect someone to at least watch the film to identify the racism. Since Sarkeesian plagiarised play throughs for her videos, treating her as an authority is really begging the question of whether she actually played them at all!

them made her look like an outsider which compounded a problem. Had a male done the same he too would have received harassment as well much like Jack Thompson did.

Men HAVE said and done the same without having their home address published and being threatened with rape.

This can be said from any side. Men and women have said things, some got harassment, some haven't. Many females identifying with gamergate have had severe harassment and rape threats. Many males have had threats. Stop using misogyny as a shield to deflect legitimate criticism.

In Quinns case, we have two confirmed examples of her crying oppression and misogyny when trying to promote a game after they failed to get traction the first time.

And examples of misogyny to accompany them. Amazingly, the thing she said existed, existed. Shocker, I know.

Shocking, but what's even more shocking is that ZQ made up one situation purely for publicity purposes, and there wasn't any accompanying 'misogyny'. This really raised questions as to why none of the journalists fact checked this. They just took her word for it, condemned another community as misogynists, and proceeded to feel good about themselves.

This led to the light shining on other instances where there have been duplicitous practices from the 'journalists'. They were happy to write about alleged rape allegations when males were accused, some were made up, others were really wishy washy. It didn't stop the likes of Ken Buchera writing his crap, and some names being irreparably smeared and also receiving threats and harassment as a result of unethical journalism.

Umm, that's not what's being said here at all but thanks for trying to change it. Harassment is going to happen to anybody when they become the spokeperson for a controversial topic. ANYBODY regardless of gender or orientation.

If you believe that-- if you honestly, really believe that regardless of orientation, people are treated the same, then that is even worse. Seriously, Zoe Quinn-- a non-journalist, is threatened with rape. Tell me, if there is equal treatment, and the movement is really about journalistic ethics, why didn't the man she cheated on her boyfriend with, who is the ONLY one in her story who has any responsibility to have journalistic ethics, receive equal treatment.

This is absurd, there's plenty of stuff how rape and abuse has been thrown around from both sides. Why is it that only gamergate gets labelled with misogyny? Why isn't anyone criticising Phil Fish for abusing someone who claimed that they were sexually assaulted by ZQ? There's a myriad of examples that can be flung around. Why should this problem be exclusively attributed to people identifying with gamergate when there's so much evidence to show that the white knights are far bigger misogynists, misandrists, just bigger haters?

Sarkeesian who was caught in her own video tape saying she wasn't a fan of video games or even played...

Which has zero relevance as to her being able to identify sexism in video games. Do you need to enjoy silent movies to be identify racism in them?

You'd kind of expect someone to at least watch the film to identify the racism. Since Sarkeesian plagiarised play throughs for her videos, treating her as an authority is really begging the question of whether she actually played them at all!

them made her look like an outsider which compounded a problem. Had a male done the same he too would have received harassment as well much like Jack Thompson did.

Men HAVE said and done the same without having their home address published and being threatened with rape.

This can be said from any side. Men and women have said things, some got harassment, some haven't. Many females identifying with gamergate have had severe harassment and rape threats. Many males have had threats. Stop using misandry as a shield to deflect legitimate criticism.

In Quinns case, we have two confirmed examples of her crying oppression and misogyny when trying to promote a game after they failed to get traction the first time.

And examples of misogyny to accompany them. Amazingly, the thing she said existed, existed. Shocker, I know.

Shocking, but what's even more shocking is that ZQ made up one situation purely for publicity purposes, and there wasn't any accompanying 'misogyny'. This really raised questions as to why none of the journalists fact checked this. They just took her word for it, condemned another community as misogynists, and proceeded to feel good about themselves.

This led to the light shining on other instances where there have been duplicitous practices from the 'journalists'. They were happy to write about alleged rape allegations when males were accused, some were made up, others were really wishy washy. It didn't stop the likes of Ken Buchera writing his crap, and some names being irreparably smeared and also receiving threats and harassment as a result of unethical journalism.

Also, it's obvious that guy has no idea how academic papers work. Some of the criticisms include the fact that it focused on one particular artistic medium (television) and referenced existing research on the subject. Seriously. The ignorance is mind-boggling.

I stopped watching after the first video. If that was an indication of what was to follow, I'm not missing anything.

So that invalidates his videos and criticism how? Or were you just looking for an excuse to stop watching because what he says just doesn't fit into your world view and you have no answer for it. The fact is Sarkeesians work isn't of an academic standard, even her "masters thesis" is all part of the same joke.

The twitter link links to wikipedia, and so what's your point? He's right and he states the context. He's laughing at the cries of the social justice crowd who always say "how can anyone be against social justice!" Well there you go, you have your answer, even the nazi's claimed that term before...

Also, it's obvious that guy has no idea how academic papers work. Some of the criticisms include the fact that it focused on one particular artistic medium (television) and referenced existing research on the subject. Seriously. The ignorance is mind-boggling.

I stopped watching after the first video. If that was an indication of what was to follow, I'm not missing anything.

So that invalidates his videos and criticism how? Or were you just looking for an excuse to stop watching because what he says just doesn't fit into your world view and you have no answer for it. The fact is Sarkeesians work isn't of an academic standard, even her "masters thesis" is all part of the same joke.

I invalidated his criticism directly because it's patently ridiculous. His complaints about her thesis are typical features of theses. He doesn't know what he's talking about. At all.

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The twitter link links to wikipedia, and so what's your point? He's right and he states the context. He's laughing at the cries of the social justice crowd who always say "how can anyone be against social justice!" Well there you go, you have your answer, even the nazi's claimed that term before...

You, like him, didn't read the wikipedia link. (Hint: It wasn't Nazis using the term) Regardless, just because someone used the term in the past associated with questionable thinking does not mean the concept itself is in any way flawed. That, again, is an utterly ridiculous argument. I could just as easily say that 'Men's Rights' is objectively bad simply because some people use it as a cover for their Misogyny. (I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you don't agree with that)

The fact that you think Social Justice (justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society) is a bad thing is deeply disturbing. You are against equality.

This is absurd, there's plenty of stuff how rape and abuse has been thrown around from both sides. Why is it that only gamergate gets labelled with misogyny?

Please, point me to copious amounts of women getting threatened with rape by people who don't like GamerGate. Or do you not understand what the word "misogyny" means?

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Why isn't anyone criticising Phil Fish for abusing someone who claimed that they were sexually assaulted by ZQ?

In my case, because I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you referring to Phil Fish attacking the boyfriend who decided to air his dirty laundry on the internet to slut-shame his ex-girlfriend in public? Because if that's the case, the reason no on is criticizing Phil Fish for that is because that asshole DESERVES to be criticized.

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There's a myriad of examples that can be flung around. Why should this problem be exclusively attributed to people identifying with gamergate when there's so much evidence to show that the white knights are far bigger misogynists, misandrists, just bigger haters?

Because that "evidence" is ludicrously stupid, for the most part, credible only to people who already have emotionally bought into the conspiratorial, tea-party-esque bullshit.

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You'd kind of expect someone to at least watch the film to identify the racism. Since Sarkeesian plagiarised play throughs for her videos, treating her as an authority is really begging the question of whether she actually played them at all!

Look at those goalposts move. Remember, your original quote (which was from BEFORE she started the project) was that she wasn't a gamer and that she didn't enjoy games. Which was, and is, irrelevant. Now, you're saying she didn't even actually see the things she's describing. That's another matter entirely.

Furthermore, even this new accusation is stupid. If she watched the play-through of the game, wrote about that, and then plagiarized the play-through-- she DID "watch the movie". If she's identifying things that are going on, she's clearly familiar enough with them to talk about them. Now, what she misses, in some cases, is CONTEXT. I personally don't agree with everything she said about every game. I happen to agree that she identified some things that I thought were a stretch. But that's a matter of opinion, not evidence that she didn't play through any of the games herself, nor is it evidence that she is "wrong". It's the amazing thing about the subject matter, it's not black and white, there's plenty of gray area. She can label something as exploiting tropes on women that I think, in context, isn't as bad. She can say that context doesn't do enough to justify the behavior. And, as adults, we can disagree without proclaiming that the other person is inherently wrong. The only stupid thing to do in is to dismiss, out of hand, her opinion, because you have a different interpretation.

Furthermore, it says nothing about your original argument. She doesn't have to be a "gamer" or particularly like gaming itself to have insightful criticism of the medium.

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This can be said from any side. Men and women have said things, some got harassment, some haven't. Many females identifying with gamergate have had severe harassment and rape threats. Many males have had threats. Stop using misogyny as a shield to deflect legitimate criticism.

Going to the abstract "well it's happens to some people on every side" is like comparing a single murder of a white man by a group of black people with the horrific plethora of lynching's and mob violence against blacks in America. The point is, was, and will always be that the treatment is NOT EQUAL. If you think it is, you're PROVING there's a problem.

Seriously, this is the same playbook that was used for years by racist assholes, and you're using the same faulty logic to go "no, it happens to us, too, therefore they can't complain about it. The "they do it to us, too!" argument has long been a mainstay of notoriously shifty groups to justify their behavior. You sure you want to join that tradition?

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Shocking, but what's even more shocking is that ZQ made up one situation purely for publicity purposes, and there wasn't any accompanying 'misogyny'. This really raised questions as to why none of the journalists fact checked this. They just took her word for it, condemned another community as misogynists, and proceeded to feel good about themselves.

Please, provide PROOF of those accusations. Because literally nothing I've seen supports a single one of those sentences.

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This led to the light shining on other instances where there have been duplicitous practices from the 'journalists'.

You mean like treating different situations differently? HOW DARE THEY.

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They were happy to write about alleged rape allegations when males were accused,

Which... uh... they should. Here's a hint: people write about alleged crimes ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Until a person is convicted, every newspaper article is about their crimes they are ACCUSED of doing.

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some were made up, others were really wishy washy.

And gee whiz, journalists aren't a court of law. They report on what they know. I mean personally, no one at my law firm would mind if it was impossible for any journalists to write about a case until the verdict came down, but I'm not sue many other people outside the law firms would like it.

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It didn't stop the likes of Ken Buchera writing his crap, and some names being irreparably smeared and also receiving threats and harassment as a result of unethical journalism.

Answer a single question honestly

If a male is accused of rape and it's reported on, and he gets death threats as a result, and you believe the journalism is unethical, would you change your mind if it turned out later there was solid proof guy is guilty, and he got away with rape? Would the original newspaper articles magically become ethical?

If so, then by basic logic, you are arguing the ethics of the journalist rest on them knowing what the result of the court case will be before the trial even begins (or, as with the example above, knowing that the person is guilty even if they're found innocent). And if that's your big "journalistic ethics" argument, then I'm sorry, I don't think discussing... well, anything of substance... with you is going to be worth my time.

Personally, I think journalism should be open to more than just people with psychic ability.

This is going to continue. Advertisers are going to keep pulling out. There isn't going to be an 'apology' for your fake Misogyny narrative, just a future looking at the unemployment line and the want ads.

And for anyone else that wants to contribute to efforts ensuring advertisers on the sites in question know that gamers are not dead and that insulting pieces like these are not welcome, here's a list with the relevant email addresses, companies, and advertisers.

And for anyone else that wants to contribute to efforts ensuring advertisers on the sites in question know that gamers are not dead and that insulting pieces like these are not welcome, here's a list with the relevant email addresses, companies, and advertisers.

Thanks, I'll make sure to mail them to insure they keep advertising the current way.

Oh yeah, I just became a supporter for a year on RPS since you fucking morons seem intent to target them as well.

And for anyone else that wants to contribute to efforts ensuring advertisers on the sites in question know that gamers are not dead and that insulting pieces like these are not welcome, here's a list with the relevant email addresses, companies, and advertisers.

Thanks, I'll make sure to mail them to insure they keep advertising the current way.

Oh yeah, I just became a supporter for a year on RPS since you fucking morons seem intent to target them as well.

Best of luck to you; they're going to need your dollars more and more.

I've been warning people that using 'economic pressure' to force political changes would have a consequence, that things swing like pendulums and the harder you pushed, the harder the backswing would be. People like yourself kept saying things like 'free speech doesn't mean free from the consequences'.

Again, reap the whirlwind. These places are drops in the bucket for most of these advertisers; better to just not be associated at all. And that's all #gamergate wants or needs from them; just move their ads somewhere else.

And for anyone else that wants to contribute to efforts ensuring advertisers on the sites in question know that gamers are not dead and that insulting pieces like these are not welcome, here's a list with the relevant email addresses, companies, and advertisers.

Thanks, I'll make sure to mail them to insure they keep advertising the current way.

Oh yeah, I just became a supporter for a year on RPS since you fucking morons seem intent to target them as well.

Best of luck to you; they're going to need your dollars more and more.

I've been warning people that using 'economic pressure' to force political changes would have a consequence, that things swing like pendulums and the harder you pushed, the harder the backswing would be. People like yourself kept saying things like 'free speech doesn't mean free from the consequences'.

Again, reap the whirlwind. These places are drops in the bucket for most of these advertisers; better to just not be associated at all. And that's all #gamergate wants or needs from them; just move their ads somewhere else.

This isn't just going to go away.

Best of luck to me? I dont need luck, I just want one of the most interesting and quirky gaming sites to continue and I put my money where my mouth is.

You mysognist fuckers dont give a shit about gaming and ethics, if you did then you would support sites such as RPS and rail against the real unethical goings on but we never heard you when there were real scandals highly visible. That says enough, your whole twitter channel is filled with "SJW" and anti-feminism, I dont see any serious mention of journalistic ethics unless its tied to feminism or SJW's.

And there you go. This is the sort of attitude that caused this to start, that keeps it going, and that's going to kill the thing you say you want so badly. Your broad-brush bullshit, made manifest in articles without evidence, as attack pieces on the people who are being written to, pushing your narrative over the truth because the truth makes you the bad guy, in the end.

Keep on doubling down. Keep on telling RPS that shitting on people over things they didn't do is ok, and all the while the ads will keep dropping and the sites will keep suffering, and eventually the thing you want will be gone, and the sites that don't shit on their readers won't be so quick to listen to your hate speech anymore.

If you think the people upset now weren't upset about the Kane and Lynch/Jeff Gerstmann thing, you're dead wrong. You just don't want to believe it because that might be yet another crack in the facade you've constructed that makes your behavior acceptable.

And there you go. This is the sort of attitude that caused this to start, that keeps it going, and that's going to kill the thing you say you want so badly. Your broad-brush bullshit, made manifest in articles without evidence, as attack pieces on the people who are being written to, pushing your narrative over the truth because the truth makes you the bad guy, in the end.

Keep on doubling down. Keep on telling RPS that shitting on people over things they didn't do is ok, and all the while the ads will keep dropping and the sites will keep suffering, and eventually the thing you want will be gone, and the sites that don't shit on their readers won't be so quick to listen to your hate speech anymore.

If you think the people upset now weren't upset about the Kane and Lynch/Jeff Gerstmann thing, you're dead wrong. You just don't want to believe it because that might be yet another crack in the facade you've constructed that makes your behavior acceptable.

Do you even LOOK at the drivel thats being posted on #Gamergate? The constant vectors of personal attacks and constant anti-feminist invective there? You constantly side with it so from now on we will associate you with it, fair is fair, after all.

Also, hate speech? Seriously? You are out of your little mind.

You really do not know what you are talking about but maybe you can ask your good friend Milo what hate speech is, he's very good at it, maybe you can also ask him about ethics when he doesnt disclose that he promotes stories by his own boss without informing of their relation, not to mention said boss is suddenly an anti-feminist GTA V player when he attacked the same game for being violent in another piece.And those are your public standard bearers that defend your cause, people who will burn you to the ground the second you are no longer an interesting political pawn to play and then you go back to what Milo called you before you became useful idiots:

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"“Personally, I don’t understand grown men wasting their lives playing computer games. It seems a bit sad to me” before concluding “It’s not for me to legislate what weirdos in yellowing underpants get up to in their spare time.”

Now THAT is what he thinks of you, your fellow gamers and of gaming. But yes, its the gaming journalists that are bad and unethical, sure, dude, I'm sorry but do you mind if I laugh in your face?

You've shown in countless topics by now, both here and the forum, that you do not have any intention to discuss, you just keep repeating ad nauseam the same thing over and over and over and guess what, that still doesnt make it true. You got your ass handed to you on the forum and here by people with a lot more patience than me and you still keep coming back and back and back...and the story never changes.

Are you really conflating a hyperbolic joke (making fun of #gamergate death threats) with a generalized target with the specific and graphic death threats that were directed against ZQ, AS, etc.?

Why is "they're just jokes lighten up" (despite being, yknow, death threats) okay to say to offended gamers but not offended feminists?

This kind of double standard exemplifies and defines the tumblr feminist reaction to #GamerGate. Decrying certain kinds of behavior while engaging in that exact same kind of behavior - we have words to describe one who does that, and it starts with "h" and ends with "ypocrite".

And there you go. This is the sort of attitude that caused this to start, that keeps it going, and that's going to kill the thing you say you want so badly. Your broad-brush bullshit, made manifest in articles without evidence, as attack pieces on the people who are being written to, pushing your narrative over the truth because the truth makes you the bad guy, in the end.

If you call the KKK racist, that's not broad-brush bullshit, it's a goddamn fact.

If you don't want to be called a mysogynist, stop blatantly being one.

It's like members of the Westboro Baptist Church saying "hey guys lets keep this civil"

Are you really conflating a hyperbolic joke (making fun of #gamergate death threats) with a generalized target with the specific and graphic death threats that were directed against ZQ, AS, etc.?

Why is "they're just jokes lighten up" (despite being, yknow, death threats) okay to say to offended gamers but not offended feminists?

This kind of double standard exemplifies and defines the tumblr feminist reaction to #GamerGate. Decrying certain kinds of behavior while engaging in that exact same kind of behavior - we have words to describe one who does that, and it starts with "h" and ends with "ypocrite".

Yes and who is his specific target? It isnt the same and claiming they are is intellectually dishonest.

The point once again being that "Gamergate" is a movement without a distinct head. For all the people claiming it's about journalistic ethics, there's the side that is fueled by the insane tea-party-esque "gamer in name only" misogynists. Once again, since at least one person can't get it through their skull, THAT DOESN'T IMPLICATE EVERYONE. Not everyone who supports gamergate is like that. No doubt in my mind. Here's the thing though-- those people that ARE still supporting gamergate are doing something that I feel is wrong-- they're trying to pretend like those people aren't really what gamergate is about, and instead to continue onward with gamergate.

This is wrong for two reasons:

First, because nobody "owns" GamerGate. It is an internet movement shielded by anonymity and polluted by trolls. Any attempt to say "they're not the real GamerGaters" is, as I pointed out earlier, nothing but a No True Scotsman fallacy. The trolls, the misogynists, those truly interested in ethics-- they all have equal claim to the name. You can't simply chop off the part of the movement you don't like and go, "hey guys, stop worrying about those death threats, and talk about the things we care about instead.

The exact problem happens to all political movements, to all religious movements, to all civil rights movements, and yet we commonly agree to make a distinction between islamic terrorists and muslims, Opus Dei/ Westboro/Anti-abortion (bombers) militants and the average christian, Black Panthers and Martin Luther King Jr, "socialist"/social democrats movements and revolutionnary terrorist cells putting bombs and robbing banks, women's rights activists/'historical' feminism and the extremists claiming to represent the one-and-only feminism movement (no waves, no branches, no internal debate - only one pure perfect feminism) while advocating violence against male humans, depopulation, chemical/physical castration and a guilty-until-proven-otherwise doctrine in law. These extremists exist, they use the freedom of speech to express their views, like in all movements - and we all agree to make the distinction between them, and the larger movement.

Why suddenly that distinction between the extremists trying to hijack a movement and the movement itself shouldn't apply to the GamerGate movement? Why it is wrong to call all muslim people terrorists/potential-terrorists, all feminist activists closet-mysandrists, but doing the same generalization on gamers is perfectly fine?

Using the "No True Scotsman" argument to do a mass-generalization of a very diverse group dealing with complex issues isn't going to help at all.

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Second, because the "journalistic ethics" thing is simply much less important than the "collectively horrible portrayals and treatment of women thing".

That's a subjective opinion: ethics and standards in journalism, no matter the sector, are fundamental to establish a trust relation with the readers and community, which in turns will immensely influence the way these readers perceive and are aware of wider problems affecting their environment - calling it "much less important" is directly removing a pillar to the anti-sexism movement.

There isn't just one slot to fill, improving the ethics and standards in gaming journalism won't chase the issue of sexism existing in the video game industry/culture/community. It's much more the opposite, they need each others to achieve actual progress: the issue of sexism needs trustable journalism (and the solid trust relation it builds) to create a real debate and discussion about it with the casual players/gamers/devs/publishers ; meanwhile, journalism needs to talk about more serious subject (such as society-wide sexism) to reveal its weakness (like we saw here with the gaming press) and improve itself.

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Gaming is fundamentally about entertainment. It's a form of entertainment I enjoy, but it's not anything wildly important.

And this is where you fail to see how massively important is the gaming culture for millions of people.

All music genres are just noise, pleasant or unpleasant noises, until you learn about their history and cultural meaning. Same goes with comics, manga or european visual novels, or even literary genres: for people "outside" of these cultures, it's just entertainment, "just games". People who don't read books don't see why we should fund public libraries - it doesn't make books trivial, far from that.

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This whole situation is like there being a debate about which was more important-- a bunch of racist nonsense in movies, and people sending death threats to black people who point it out, or the ethics of the authors who write for celebrity magazines. The two just aren't comparable.

One issue, the treatment of women, is important not only to gaming as a hobby, but also to, you know...the treatment of 51% of the people on the planet. The other issue is about how the people who write about video games, who have taken free copies of games and trips to events for YEARS, suddenly need to adhere to the same standards as war reporters?

First, video game journalism isn't "celebrity magazine", if you go beyond the Kotaku, IGN and the likes you would find much more interesting media. Second, the KKK and racist movements have been existing for centuries, did it stops us from trying to have honest investigative journalism covering the issue of racism? Wouldn't that be something we would need to properly fight racism?

This is not a shop where we only have 1 coin and we have to choose between two separate items: "less sexism" or "better journalism". We are in a workshop, a tool shed, and we have to solve very difficult and complex problems. We need to study and fully understand these problems, isolate the issues, tweak, change, improve all kind of situations.

For example: sexism in commercial video games, sexism in the video gaming community (globally, not always specifically), sexism in the video game industry. We need many tools to handle these 3 different (but interconnected) problems. One of these tools is the media (that includes journalists). We found out that this tool was flawed, wasn't sharp and accurate enough for such a complex issue. GamerGate is raising awareness about this.

Since the movement is online and worldwide, it's polluted by all kind of trolls and false-flagers, but it doesn't change a thing to the problem: gaming journalism is flawed and needs to improve dramatically, especially if it wants to participate in the betterment of gaming by phasing out sexism.

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Again, the issue of journalistic ethics has merit. Just not in the face of a much more important issue. Again, the reason you're only really hearing one side of this is that the other side is a pretty terrible message. I will be MORE than happy to support improvements to journalistic ethics...just as soon as the bigger issue, the horrible treatment of women, is acknowledged to be the larger, more important goal.

Again, you're acting like if there is a single "slot", and we have to decide (vote?) for who's gonna be the winner and sit on the throne of change - that's not how it works when dealing with such complex issues as sexism.

If we intentionally ignore the problems affecting gaming journalism, the lack of ethics and standards, what's going to happen when the topic of sexism is covered, because of recent events, or new games being released?

What we've been seeing in the last 3 years: 'click bait' yellow journalism misrepresenting facts, omitting and changing the context when needed, to present it in a more shocking way to generate enough mediatic buzz - with the ultimate excuse of "raising awareness" about serious societal issues. Games where a female character is physically attacked in combat are suddenly games heavily promoting rape and domestic abuse, someone making a potentially-sexist joke in public suddenly needs to be harassed and threatened on all social networks and fired from their job, to show these sexist pigs we can be as nasty as them. Sounds like positive change, right?

The result? People who were already seeing sexism everywhere are cheering because it confirms their pre-existing views (= stereotype) on the gaming culture. People who were skeptical about sexism in gaming can only see sensationalist journalism trying to please their choir to score more page views, and seriously wonder if all anti-sexism/feminism movements are like that. Sadly, a few end up believing that, and join the ranks of the "anti-feminist" movements.

If instead video game journalists were striving for better ethics and standards, humbly and publicly admitting when they made mistakes: omitting key elements, misrepresenting contexts, or simply not making the extra workload of checking and crossing multiple sources - a lot more people would trust their words and listen to what they have to say EVEN if it collides with their existing opinion (ex: 'there isn't much sexism in gaming'). If we could trust gaming journalism, a lot more people would agree to discuss the topic of sexism openly and see what can be done to improve the situation.

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Gamergate is inherently tied up with the misogynists. You can't separate the two because nobody owns the movement.

You can separate the two, but it requires an effort.

GamerGate was born from the gaming press coverage of the issue of sexism in gaming.

It is the COVERAGE that is criticized, the constant misrepresentation of the problem to make it look like an easy simple situation: us, the progressive people leading the future of gaming, vs the evil biggots hating on women/POC/gays/trans.

In the process, the stereotypes of the 80s about gamers (cis white basement-dwelling virgin male) were dug out from the cave and used to violently (lexical field of death) build the narrative of a simple war between the new and the old, the progressives and the conservatives. It doesn't matter that these hateful stereotypes were built by conservatives three decades ago, it doesn't matter that simplifying complex issues into binary situations between good and evil is the very thing we reproach to conservatives.

Putting yourself on the "right" side (morally speaking) of the barrier doesn't free you from any effort, honesty and personal responsibility, if you start stabbing people with popped collars (or sending death threats to people online) you're going to be arrested, "but I'm doing this to fight sexism!" is not a valid reason for failing as a citizen. There's that huge tendency among the privileged western people to pick a positive movement fighting inequality, using it as an excuse and shield, to satisfy much more personal issues and needs, such as wanting to hate what they see as evil: biggots, traditionalists, conservatives, religious extremists, etc.

Sadly enough, the exact same thing is done by these "evils": it's ok to to shoot/reject black or muslim people... because it's done to save America/the western 'civilization' ; it's ok to harass and reject homosexuality/transsexualism... because it's done to save the traditional family/christian society.

Here we have "journalists" and SJ activists defending the idea that it's ok to misrepresent news, entire cultures and movements, leading to campaigns of wrongful harassment (including death threats and legal harassment, leading to loss of jobs, friends, family and a severe degradation of the mental health of the targeted individuals), that it's ok to silence dissenting voices within their ranks... because it's done to save our society from sexism. The exact same thing was said about waterboarding and the security of the US of A, look where we are now.

Such extreme consequentialism never ever brought real positive change, the "ends justify the means" argument is deeply flawed. It even becomes a fallacy when these means are the exact opposite of the ends we're trying to achieve. You don't end sexism with shoddy journalism and "counter" harassment.

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Also, because it's easy for "us", western people with modern education, to know that sexism is widespread and wrong, we tend to believe the situation is a simple one: we only need to "educate" the people in the wrong, the ignorant masses, about our superior knowledge and consciousness. It doesn't work, it never worked.

Just look at racism: the solution isn't "just don't be racist". How easy that would be, having a simple switch that turns us from "racist" to "not racist", solving the problem in one go. It's been decades since the industrialized slavery by european/american settlers, it is pretty clear now the problem is much more complex than simply "bad people being bad people", that 'solutions' like telling kids that "racism is bad, m'kay" are very far from actually solving the problem.

You've seen it on blogs/facebook/twitter countless times (and maybe had such thoughts in your youth): why can't we stop being so greedy, and so racist, and so sexist - the world would be so much better - if only we would just made a little personal effort... What is stopping us from achieving that dream?

Then if you're young and optimistically naive (which is a good thing at that age), you'll eventually form an answer like that: all my friends are against racism/sexism/greed, what is stopping us from making a better society... Must be some people out there, actively preventing us from reaching that promised land! Plotting against us, they're the one being the last obstacle, they're our Greatest Evil - once defeated, it will be perfect.

Sadly, society doesn't work like that. This is why politics are so complex, why it takes so many years to get the smallest changes.

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Those of you whose goal is improving journalistic ethics have a point. The problem is, the "movement" keeps targeting women because there is no cohesive movement.

The "movement" is only targeting women... according to the coverage by the very media outlets being criticized by the movement for their deeply flawed coverage of the subject.

It's pretty clear that most of these 'journalists' are seeing the criticism as an attack against them, rather than an opportunity for introspection and changing the way they work. It is then only logical that they see this as a "fight" and use every tricks in their sleeves to win the 'information war', by omitting key elements such as the context and origins, while focusing on the few trolls (false flag and genuine ones) to sweep the criticism under the carpet.

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You want to stop getting lumped in with the misogynists? STOP BEING A PART OF THE SAME GROUP.

This is exactly what GamerGate did - it distanced itself from the "quinnspiracy" and "five guys burger & fries" movements, clearly moving away from these movements because they were populated by too many trolls and misogynists.

Now you're asking people to make another group, 'Gamers for a Better Press' for example, but the exact same measures will be taken:

- all criticized media outlets will publish how it's a hate group harassing and threatening women in gaming (like they did with GamerGate and NotYourShield), because these "journalists" refuse introspection and carrying the burden (much more work to do, much more things to worry about = higher stress level) that are ethics and standards.

- misogynists assholes/trolls/false-flags will jump on the occasion to claim this coverage proves these media are corrupted and controlled by misandrist feminists (since these media didn't investigated the new group at all, they immediately claimed it's another hate group), and will go on a harassment campaign against anyone labeling themselves as feminist.

- SJW/tumblr feminists will jump on the occasion to claim this reaction by misogynists assholes/trolls/false-flags proves gaming is completely sexist and go on a harassment campaign against anyone labeling themselves as gamers.

- non-sexist gamers will feel deeply offended by so much hate and harassment, especially by the media, who are supposed to go beyond the simplistic rhetoric of online hate groups. These non-sexist gamers will then defend the new movement 'Gamers for a Better Press', since that hate campaign ran by the media outlets (that these non-sexist gamers previously trusted) revealed that the current state of the gaming journalism sector is even worse than these non-sexist gamers initially thought.

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What we need here to break that hate circle is an effort by the gaming 'journalists', who have all the education necessary for that, who are actually paid for that - to acknowledge their coverage of complex issues are deeply flawed and misrepresenting at the moment, to accept they need to seriously reconsider how they work and how important are ethics and standard in their profession (that it isn't "just some games for stupid nerds").

Depressingly enough, a lot of these writers refuse to face these problems and will scan the crowd to focus all their attention (and the attention of their articles) on the few trolls and misogynists (genuine or not), to walk away from the discussion without losing face.

This is where gaming journalism terribly failed at addressing the issue of sexism in gaming, and where we need to work the most to unlock the situation - without a trustable press, no one will ever want to discuss sexism.

Without that discussion, backed up by honest and accurate analyses by journalists (whose role is analyzing complex uncharted situations, using many different sources of various reliability) of all the factors at play, no one will open their mind to change (even the smallest ones) about the current state of the gaming culture and what could be done.

We can wave our arms at sexism and sexist people, harass anyone who disagree with our methods, it won't change anything to the problem. You don't fight sexism with shoddy journalism.

There's a myriad of examples that can be flung around. Why should this problem be exclusively attributed to people identifying with gamergate when there's so much evidence to show that the white knights are far bigger misogynists, misandrists, just bigger haters?

Because that "evidence" is ludicrously stupid, for the most part, credible only to people who already have emotionally bought into the conspiratorial, tea-party-esque bullshit.

You contradict yourself here. You know of the evidence, you've already dismissed it.

Why isn't anyone criticising Phil Fish for abusing someone who claimed that they were sexually assaulted by ZQ?

In my case, because I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you referring to Phil Fish attacking the boyfriend who decided to air his dirty laundry on the internet to slut-shame his ex-girlfriend in public? Because if that's the case, the reason no on is criticizing Phil Fish for that is because that asshole DESERVES to be criticized.

Sorry, sexually harassed, not assaulted. But with todays parlance particularly around the overuse of misogyny, I guess they're both the same thing anyway. BTW what did Eron do wrong?

You'd kind of expect someone to at least watch the film to identify the racism. Since Sarkeesian plagiarised play throughs for her videos, treating her as an authority is really begging the question of whether she actually played them at all!

Look at those goalposts move. Remember, your original quote (which was from BEFORE she started the project) was that she wasn't a gamer and that she didn't enjoy games. Which was, and is, irrelevant. Now, you're saying she didn't even actually see the things she's describing. That's another matter entirely.

Furthermore, even this new accusation is stupid. If she watched the play-through of the game, wrote about that, and then plagiarized the play-through-- she DID "watch the movie". If she's identifying things that are going on, she's clearly familiar enough with them to talk about them. Now, what she misses, in some cases, is CONTEXT. I personally don't agree with everything she said about every game. I happen to agree that she identified some things that I thought were a stretch. But that's a matter of opinion, not evidence that she didn't play through any of the games herself, nor is it evidence that she is "wrong". It's the amazing thing about the subject matter, it's not black and white, there's plenty of gray area. She can label something as exploiting tropes on women that I think, in context, isn't as bad. She can say that context doesn't do enough to justify the behavior. And, as adults, we can disagree without proclaiming that the other person is inherently wrong. The only stupid thing to do in is to dismiss, out of hand, her opinion, because you have a different interpretation.

Furthermore, it says nothing about your original argument. She doesn't have to be a "gamer" or particularly like gaming itself to have insightful criticism of the medium.

Your response is ridiculous. Like really, how can you keep up such degradingly wilfull ignorance?

If you reread what I posted, you'll see that i'm making a differentiation between watching movies and playing games. Movies are not interactive; games are. Watching a game for critical review is not the same as watching a film. Not playing a game is the same as not watching a film.

You jumped the gun with my opinions; I'm criticising how the media is treating her as an authority on the matter. My points clearly do matter on that topic. You're just too busy trying to believe what you want to believe, ready to discard facts that contradict your own prejudices.

Your response holds no argument against what I said; treating her as an authority is really begging the question of whether she actually played them at all! You just went off on a tangent thinking you had a 'gotcha' in there.

This can be said from any side. Men and women have said things, some got harassment, some haven't. Many females identifying with gamergate have had severe harassment and rape threats. Many males have had threats. Stop using misogyny as a shield to deflect legitimate criticism.

Going to the abstract "well it's happens to some people on every side" is like comparing a single murder of a white man by a group of black people with the horrific plethora of lynching's and mob violence against blacks in America. The point is, was, and will always be that the treatment is NOT EQUAL. If you think it is, you're PROVING there's a problem.

Seriously, this is the same playbook that was used for years by racist assholes, and you're using the same faulty logic to go "no, it happens to us, too, therefore they can't complain about it. The "they do it to us, too!" argument has long been a mainstay of notoriously shifty groups to justify their behavior. You sure you want to join that tradition?

An incredibly ham-fisted attempt at trying to make out gamergaters are the same as racists.

But it clearly isn't equal. One group has access to the media (well they are the media), and another doesn't. You clearly have taken the side which has the loudest voice, and decided to believe them. Again, you're still using the misogyny label (and now racism) to deflect legitimate criticism.

I am not a racist bigot, I have said nothing of the sort, so I don't understand why you bring that up, and try to make out that I am one. You're just being a desperate troll here.

Shocking, but what's even more shocking is that ZQ made up one situation purely for publicity purposes, and there wasn't any accompanying 'misogyny'. This really raised questions as to why none of the journalists fact checked this. They just took her word for it, condemned another community as misogynists, and proceeded to feel good about themselves.

Please, provide PROOF of those accusations. Because literally nothing I've seen supports a single one of those sentences.

Check out the allegation by ZQ that wizardchan raided her. There were two posts on wizardchan, and that somehow amounted to hacking, doxxing, and widespread harassment. The reality is, that there never was any raid. It was made up. Demands for evidence works both ways. I'm saying nothing happened, because the lack of evidence suggests that. You could easily provide evidence (NB: An allegation is not evidence) to prove that a raid took place!

Any journalist doing basic fact checking would have never run the story. There's just nothing there to support that she initially got harassed.

This led to the light shining on other instances where there have been duplicitous practices from the 'journalists'.

You mean like treating different situations differently? HOW DARE THEY.

Well then why did they feel the need to go sanitise articles from years ago? We aren't dealing with different situations here. Where some allegations against males such as Max Temkin, and Brad Wardell were published without any compunction as to the damage they might do, now they immediately found their morals with ZQ and decided to completely sensor any discussion around the topic. Like if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

They were happy to write about alleged rape allegations when males were accused,

Which... uh... they should. Here's a hint: people write about alleged crimes ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Until a person is convicted, every newspaper article is about their crimes they are ACCUSED of doing.

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some were made up, others were really wishy washy.

And gee whiz, journalists aren't a court of law. They report on what they know. I mean personally, no one at my law firm would mind if it was impossible for any journalists to write about a case until the verdict came down, but I'm not sue many other people outside the law firms would like it.

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It didn't stop the likes of Ken Buchera writing his crap, and some names being irreparably smeared and also receiving threats and harassment as a result of unethical journalism.

Answer a single question honestly

If a male is accused of rape and it's reported on, and he gets death threats as a result, and you believe the journalism is unethical, would you change your mind if it turned out later there was solid proof guy is guilty, and he got away with rape? Would the original newspaper articles magically become ethical?

If so, then by basic logic, you are arguing the ethics of the journalist rest on them knowing what the result of the court case will be before the trial even begins (or, as with the example above, knowing that the person is guilty even if they're found innocent). And if that's your big "journalistic ethics" argument, then I'm sorry, I don't think discussing... well, anything of substance... with you is going to be worth my time.

Personally, I think journalism should be open to more than just people with psychic ability.

That question is mind boggingly absurd. Like really, is that your attempt at a strawman? The answer is definitely NO!

You betray complete ignorance to what ethical practice is. You must have absolutely no clue to what ethics actually are. Ethical practice is irrespective of the outcomes. If an engineer guesses his answer, but buildings don't fall down, is his practice ethical? Of course not. If a doctor applies best practice medicine, but the patient dies is that ethical? Of course yes.

If a journalist doesn't fact check an allegation, that is unethical. Don't you think they have a duty of care to do the slightest amount of verification or research before publishing something very damaging? Like your psychic comment is clearly showing that they can't know and it proves my point, so how can you possibly be justified in publishing something so damaging if you don't know who is telling the truth?

Her efforts have me really excited for the next Call of Duty: Black Ops, where you control a crack team of counsellors who must go in and boost the self esteem of the enemy until they feel good enough not to fight anymore. The main character will of course be modeled on Deana Troi from Star Trek, TNG. Every game will become a 'Troi Episode.' No wonder gamers are angry.

Yes, women can be decoration in video games, but all those guys I killed playing Farcry? Despite the fact that they look and act like they have a steroid shake for every meal, and generally only say things like "I'm going to shoot you in the face," every last one of them was a deep and compelling character that just oozed backstory. Didn't you just tear up when useless henchmen #2763 had to die, and you found out no one would feed his goldfish and the poor little guy would starve?

And what about the poor demons in Doom Next? Or how poor Duke Nukem couldn't do anything about the aliens trashing his ride, but could only amble off after ther aliens that did it.

Look, you have a crowd of people who PRACTICE vitriolic hyperbole for a living, and you offer to turn their favorite pastime into something they have worked very hard to avoid, and then are surprised when they turn that vitriolic hyperbole on you? I am not saying it's right, but surely it was obvious. I mean, if you walk into a Hell's Angels assembly and start rattling off the issues with Harley Davidsons, advantages of prohibition, sexism of wet t-shirt contests, and maybe suggest Neil Young is a better artist than Lynyrd Skynyrd, do you really think you are going to get away without buying your orthodontist a new pool? I am not saying it is right, but it was inevitable. Then she thinks it's going to get better on Colbert? Good luck with that.

Do you think I am toting a BFG and wielding psionic mayhem to torment my enemies because I want a REALISTIC experience? They are GAMES. Everyone talks trash, and they only make sexist comments if that bothers you.

It is ridiculously easy to create an email address and male persona, and see that hateful people are still hateful regardless of who you are. Try it, and you could well find that gamers are NICER to women, general speakng. Why do you think manginas are so popular in MMOs?

No, using cherry picked 'evidence' to start a fight that is going to take a perfectly predictable turn, then playing the victim card, then going on Colbert to reignite the flames is not the way to garner sympathy for your cause.

A reputable news source did some investigative journalism and came to the conclusion that the pro GamerGate movement was largely about harassing women, and specifically women who criticized GamerGate, rather than trying to do anything positive.

That there are critics of gaming culture at all means gamers are being embraced by the mainstream. You can't dismiss the attacks and you can't defend the attackers. All we can do is struggle through this and hope everyone grows up a little and learns how to handle criticism (like a human) and not act like a monster.